EDITORIAL: ExxonMobil sellout not a total loss

Gov. Christie made a controversial settlement with Exxon in 2015 for $225 million to compensate for contamination at refineries in Linden and Bayonne. Now critics want to block the deal.
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New Jersey’s settlement with Exxon for $225 million to compensate for decades of wetlands pollution around the company’s refineries in Linden and Bayonne was upheld by an appellate panel. Environmentalists and other critics objected to the deal, claiming the state accepted far too small a payment.(Photo: ~File photo)

It’s official: Former Gov. Chris Christie stuck it to New Jersey by selling out to ExxonMobil. An appellate panel on Monday upheld the $225 million settlement that let ExxonMobil off the hook for the wetlands contamination surrounding refineries in Linden and Bayonne.

But it was a Pyrrhic victory of sorts for the old administration — the settlement funds Christie may have wanted to plug budget holes were held up by the legal challenges. Meanwhile, voters supported a referendum that prevents funds from future pollution settlements from being used for anything other than cleanup and remediation; the ExxonMobil payout therefore has now been salvaged primarily for environmental purposes, minus legal fees.

Still, it’s fair to wonder what might have been if Christie hadn’t been so anxious to please Big Oil. The state wanted $9 billion to compensate for the environmental damage, and while that figure was likely unattainable, the state need not have settled for three cents on the dollar in a case in which ExxonMobil had already been found liable. The deal also freed the company from any responsibility for contamination at hundreds of smaller sites across New Jersey.

The controversial settlement did, however, raise public awareness of the ongoing abuse of pollution payouts, which Christie had frequently redirected to other budget needs, leading to the referendum that voters approved. So the entire affair wasn’t a total loss for New Jerseyans.

But it was still a sellout.

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